


Three Hundred and Ninety-Nine

by pyrrhocorax (mniotilta)



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Birdwatching, M/M, Rival Sex, Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 13:06:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6196216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mniotilta/pseuds/pyrrhocorax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For APH ficnet's prompt event, with the prompt being "rivals who are secretly banging."</p>
<p>Basically Denmark and Norway go searching for birds, have awkward misadventures, and sleep together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Hundred and Ninety-Nine

**Author's Note:**

> Henrik is my name for Denmark, Halvard “Halle” is my name for Norway. The rest of this is just me rambling about why I chose to write this and you can ignore it if you wish.
> 
> Of the two prompts selected for [APH ficnet’s event](http://aph-fanfic-network.tumblr.com/post/139045999206/members), I originally wanted to do Pottertalia and came up with a bunch of subjects and things I wanted to write about over the course of a month, but when I started writing it, it wasn’t coming out the way I planned it or the way I wanted it. When I went on a walk I started thinking about the other prompt just in case I needed a backup plan and I started thinking about what subjects I knew about that would make interesting rivalry material. I played around with a few ideas and had a really strong impression of a scene and had to write it. I wrote nearly twelve pages in one sitting (which is something I hardly ever have the energy to do), liked the draft, and decided to go with the rivals secretly banging prompt.
> 
> If you’ve read some of my other work, surprise surprise, I’m writing about birds again. I like birds a lot. But I also belong to kind of an odd subsect of people who like birds in that I’m a birder, which has some semantic difference between being a birdwatcher depending on who you talk to. Birdwatching generally used for people who are casual, look at birds outside their window, etc. A birder is someone who goes out of their way and specifically goes to places in search of birds. I used the bird watching tag because it already existed but “birding” would be the more appropriate one to use here.
> 
> I’m also quite odd for a birder. The average age of a birder in the United States is 53, making me nearly thirty years younger than the average. What’s interesting to me is that despite this massive generation gap, there isn’t that much of a language and cultural difference at all that you find along online communities and elsewhere. Birding has its own set of words and phrases used nowhere else in English, there’s jokes that only are funny if you know the nuances of the sport, there’s topics that cause as much heated discussion and arguments as fandom banter. There are giant rivalries among some people just are there are in anything.
> 
> I’m not so much writing about birds this time as I am the culture of birding in a way that’s understandable to people who don’t go out every Sunday chasing rare ducks as they migrate south. There’s tons and tons of books written about birders but most of them are more about the people and the journey they took to get where they were in their life. They're all stories about people. Some of the most surreal and beautiful places I’ve ever been to in my entire life I saw because I was originally looking for birds.
> 
> I think that’s part of the reason why I like hanging out with people that are old enough to be my parents and looking for birds with them. They exchange their stories with me and I tell them some of mine. Some of them are funny, some of them are sad, but they’re all stories about being human even if it’s all for the birds. I wanted to reflect that human aspect of birding culture.
> 
> This is all inspired by true stories of the misadventures and life pains I’ve been told/read about by other birders as well as some of my own experiences. This takes place during the Great Backyard Bird Count that happened last month, a global event in which birdwatchers and birders alike try to see and count as many birds as they possibly can all in the name of helping scientific research get a better understanding of bird fluctuations and populations. Some people, including myself this year, make it a competition out of it. 
> 
> So, without further ado, here’s Denmark and Norway messing each other over while looking at wildlife.

The two of them had met amongst a flock of other birders ten years ago in search of a rare vagrant that had blown in from Russia. When word got out of a consistent spotting in an area west of Stockholm, people came running. Henrik, who was already at work when he heard the news, hurriedly ran to tell his boss he was taking a sick day before hopping on the quickest flight to Sweden. Halvard drove all night from his home in the wilderness and reached the location right before the sun rose. He was the first one there, waiting in his car with the engine off and the windows cracked open so he could listen for morning birdsong, but soon enough he heard tires grumbling on the road from others who had traveled far to view this small, critically endangered bird.  
  
You often meet the same people birding. Arthur, a college professor of history from England, was the second to arrive, greeting Halvard with a friendly nod as they both got out of their cars and hiked quietly to where the bird was rumored to be found. They spoke softly of their most recent sightings, of Halvard’s little brother and the fledgeling birder that Arthur’s nephew in America was becoming, of the birds they saw whizzing by at dawn, but it was the sociable lapwing they were focused on findng.  
  
And with binoculars in hand they finally spotted it. A foreign plover in a flock of common lapwings. Not a word was said between the two.  
  
“Check out the jizz on that bird!”  
  
But the third newcomer did.  
  
Jizz, rather unfortunately, is a birding term that is indistinguishable from the sexual secretion kind in terms of sound and spelling. In meaning, birding jizz simply refers to the general gist and impression of a bird. It’s a harmless enough concept and an incredibly useful one at that. You’re already jizzing if you see a mystery bird but can safely call it a duck because of its shape and behavior. Birders take this farther, being able to distinguish a dabbling duck from a diving duck and file behavior into little categories because of their knowledge of the jizz of many birds. It can get a little awkward, standing on a pier looking at seabirds next to a lovely non-birding couple also enjoying the view, and saying aloud to yourself “get a load of that jizz.”  
  
Fortunately, today, Henrik is not among non-birders who often give him wary glances when he proclaims this to himself. He’s simply agreed with with a flat “mhm” and joined by a few other straggling birders and photographers who have just arrived. People swap stories, rumors of sightings, and introduce themselves all while looking at a creature that is hundreds of miles away from home.  
  
It’s only when the bird flies away, when people start to leave, when Halvard is shaking Henrik’s hand in greeting that he realizes that the Danish man is wearing a suit and looks nothing like the other people here. He gives him a look.  
  
“Yeah, I know,” he laughs bashfully, “I probably should’ve gone home and changed clothes before leaving work but I had a feeling the lapwing would’ve been gone if I wasted any time.”  
  
Spoken like a true birder. He’s accepted.  
  
The three of them drink coffee and eat a lackluster breakfast in a small cafe outside of town, exchange emails and phone numbers, and make their way back to their home countries tired, ragged, but happy to see a bird they might not ever see again in their lifetimes. 

* * *

It takes a few months for Henrik to realize that he knows Halvard by name, that he’s read some of his books and articles about wildlife, that Halvard is one of the top birders in Norway and a regional expert. He’s birding royalty. And thus begins a tiny spark of competition.  
  
Not all birders are competitive, and unlike most other sports there is no money in being competitive. But still, there are birders who race against each other every year to top the record for how many individual species they can find. There are people who want to see as many birds on earth as they possibly can, no matter the cost. There are people who cross war-torn borders, lose limbs, and pay thousands of dollars go to the most extreme places on the planet all in search of birds that may or may not be there.  
  
And that’s the catch of it. Skill can only get you so far. There are no referees or rules calling the shots of where birds can and can’t be. You can’t tell a bird to stay put for a few more seconds. No sum of money can convince a bird to erupt from the bushes and give you a good look at it. Birds don’t give a damn. Nature doesn’t care what you want. And luck—being at the right place at the right time—can mean everything.  
  
Halvard had never been competitive with his interest in the outdoors. He had become a lister only after having to do that as his job but it still wasn’t something he did all the time. He had a life list, as most do, a long list of birds he had seen, but he wasn’t recording every pigeon that passed him by.  
  
But when Henrik emails him that he’s just reached three hundred different species with the help of a dusky warbler—a small bird that had blown in from Asia, discovered on the tip of Norway, a bird that Halvard has never seen—there’s something within Halvard that feels threatened. Henrik’s encroaching too close to his territory. The challenge of rivalry is accepted.  
  
The next week Halvard taunts him with the photo he took of a rare harlequin duck, swimming at the northernmost point of Finnmark. It’s his three hundred and eighty fifth bird, he boasts.  
  
The game is on. 

* * *

Henrik had a late start as a birder. As a child he loved to run around outside but he seldom paid any particular living being more than a few moments of attention. Running through flocks of gulls on the beach was as close as he got to interacting with birds and a stray songbird landing outside his window didn’t distract him from chatting with his friends. He had standard interests and a standard life, going off to university to study engineering and marrying his long-time sweetheart soon after graduating. For a while, everything was great—he had landed a great job, he had a dog and a lovely home with someone he loved to share it with, but it was only a few years before his marriage started to fall apart and his life along with it. His spouse left and the house went with them, the dog died, and he spent the next year and a half struggling with alcohol abuse and sleeping on his friend’s couch. At work he volunteered to take on massive projects and extra work to cover up any feelings of sadness, a mechanism that was only effective if he kept himself busy, and while his efforts flung him higher and higher up the ladder, there wasn’t any joy in his life.  
  
On an odd weekend where he was forcefully sent home from work after sleeping under his desk for a week straight, he drank while looking out the window on a cold day while his friend painted pictures of rosy tulips that had not yet bloomed in the windowbox. A bird flew by, landed, and for this first time in his life he wondered what the name of the bird was. It was a small bird, drab with a red cap and a small yellow beak, a bird he had seen before but never this close.  
  
“Do you know what this bird is?”  
  
“Not a clue.”  
  
And then it flew, without leaving any answer.  
  
Henrik just had to know. 

* * *

That lone common redpoll, a female, lead to him frustratedly flipping through books in bookstores and libraries trying to find out the name. It was a mission, a quest, one that took him most of the day to find his answer, and while yelling “I got it!” in a public library attracted a lot of stares and angry hushes, he didn’t care. The entire time searching, he didn’t feel one stab of guilt that he could’ve been a better husband, he didn’t miss the joys of his old life, he wasn’t crunching numbers through caffeine-fueled energy. He had a name, and he was euphoric, if only for a moment.  
  
It started slow, with him running back and forth between the library and whatever bird he saw, not committed to checking the book out at first, but he soon realized that relying on his memory to figure out the birds he saw was a lot easier said than done. He checked out the field guide as often as he could and started carrying a notebook so he could jot notes to himself if he saw something. That lead to listing, with the date and species, which lead to larger entries about his walks in the park. He bought his own copy of the field guide. He started writing about his feelings in the margins of his birding log. He purchased a pair of binoculars. He spent more time outside and less time moping on the couch. He no longer overwhelmed himself with work to forget his sadness.  
  
By his thirtieth birthday his family and friends referred his birding as an obsession.  
  
But he was happy. 

* * *

In contrast, by the age of three Halvard could recognize more birds than he could count. In the deep Norwegian countryside where he spent his youth he inherited his knowledge from his nature-oriented mother. He was more of a recluse than anyone else he knew, barely paying attention to others around him, but he did pay attention to the names of trees and the migration patterns of birds. By the time he was twelve, he knew more than his parents, and his younger brother was born.  
  
While Halvard cared about nature deeply he also cared equally as strongly for his little sibling. When his mother suddenly died, he took care of her duties and supported his heartbroken father. When he moved to the city, he pretended it didn’t effect him, that he was stronger than he actually was, and tried to remain as independent as possible. When his father was away on business he kept track of his brother and household affairs before he took care of himself. When he was asked if he needed a break, he said he didn’t, even if he did. He didn’t so much as blink when he got the phone call that there had been a car accident and his father was dead. His brother had time to mourn. He didn’t. He kept working harder to keep everything together.  
  
He got a job as a journalist and editor after finishing secondary school that paid enough to support the two of them and spent his free days in parks thinking about the rural life he once had. He saved his money, honed his skills as a writer and a birder, and paved the way for his brother to go off and study at a well-known university. He had left the nest. Halvard wasn’t needed anymore.  
  
He saw a job ad for a naturalist position far up north to do counts and local plant surveys. It warned about the isolation, the dangers of the wilderness, but the beauty of the outdoors and a fat paycheck. They wanted someone with a science degree, something Halvard didn’t have. He applied anyway. He listed off the names of Norway’s flora and fauna with ease and showed a knack for picking up new skills quickly.  
  
He got the job.  
  
He was thirty.  
  
He cried more in his first month out alone in the fjords than he did in the past eleven years. 

* * *

**THE BEGINNING OF NINETEENTH ANNUAL GREAT BACKYARD BIRD COUNT, 2016  
**   
FEBRUARY 12  
Location: Orø, Selsø Sø, and Tisvilde  
  
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, the saying goes.  
  
There’s also a saying that says that two birders are better than one.  
  
When Henrik invites Halvard to bird with him during the count, it’s an offer that Halvard accepts immediately. They take time off of work, plan their spots, and collaborate over the phone and by text. It’s all friendly, all fun, but they both know that they’re just itching to get at each other’s throats by nabbing their four hundredth bird. The odd rivalry between the two men has become legendary in the European birding circle, and as soon as Henrik let word out he was going on a birding trip with his rival, bets were placed. Who would reach four hundred first? Would they even see a new bird on their trip? Who will see the most species?  
  
The water surrounding the small island of Orø at a little past seven in the morning would have to decide that.  
  
“Mallards, about fifty of them.”  
  
“I’d say more about fifty _five_. Mergansers at 11 o‘clock.”  
  
“Red-breasted?”  
  
“What do you think, genius?”  
  
Henrik stops looking through his binoculars and tallies down the ducks he’s seen in the past twenty minutes, the mallards, the mergansers, a flock of goldeneyes. “You never know, we might experience something fresh and strange out here. Maybe you’ll feel it when I kick your ass and win the competition, Halle.”  
  
“The only thing fresh and strange I want to experience is the child-like glee I’ll feel after throwing you into the water if you don’t help me count these damn ducks, Henrik. This may be a competition but it’s also a scientific survey and I intend to be exact about it.”  
  
The same banter continues all during their survey of Selsø Sø, where they add rooks, fieldfares, and a pair of white-tailed wagles. They drive north to Tisvilde adds five different kinds of tits and they split up to cover more ground. A brambling and a twite makes Halvard feel confident he’s in the lead by the time the sun sets. He’s still smiling internally by the time they check into the hotel in Copenhagen.  
  
He stops smiling when they go over their lists for the day.  
  
“Yellowhammer?” Halvard is dumbfounded. “When did you see that?”  
  
“Well, I didn’t see it, but I heard it, when we split up. You didn’t?”  
  
Silence is all Henrik needs to know that he didn't, and it’s he that’s smiling in his sleep that night instead of Halvard.  
  
DAILY NET COUNT  
  
Halvard:  
Total Bird Count: 33  
Last Seen Species: Twite  
  
Henrik:  
Total Bird Count: 34  
Last Seen Species: Yellowhammer 

* * *

FEBRUARY 13  
Location: Copenhagen and Kristiansand  
  
He nabs a Yellowhammer the next day but he doesn’t feel any more secure.  
  
He also realizes that Henrik is in his home country, he has years of experience years combing Copenhagen and knows where he can find birds easily, even in the cloudy, dry winters. It isn’t fair to be comparing himself so soon, for tonight they’ll be in Norway and he’ll be the one rattling off birds much faster than Henrik. He’ll win. Slow and steady wins the race.  
  
He still tries to take advantage of the situation, though. He takes forever getting ready, orders dessert when they sit down for lunch, taking his time to delay Henrik, a sort of indirect punishment that he’s not sure Henrik realizes is happening. Or maybe he does, as he uninvitedly splits the cake slice Halvard ordered in two and takes giant bites out of it. When Halvard glares at him, Henrik tells him that it’s the least Halvard can do, he’s the one paying for their fun little date.  
  
“It’s not a date.”  
  
Henrik continues to flirt with him the rest of the day much to his annoyance, as they trudge through muddy landscapes and in canals in search of another checkmark on the list.  
  
While Halvard counts siskins and smews as daylight fades away, Henrik interrupts him by saying he sees a snow bunting, but when Halvard whips around to look, all he sees is Henrik making a heart shape with his hands and winking seductively. While Halvard takes his time gathering up snow and shoving it down the back of Henrik’s coat, he misses northern harrier—with it’s distinctive long tail and white rump—flying overhead.  
  
The flight from Copenhagen to Kristiansand is spent sulking, calculating, and although Henrik tries to cheer him up and ease the conflict, all Halvard wants to do is go for the kill, in the same way the harrier he missed pierces the hearts of little cheery animals without blinking an eye.  
  
DAILY NET COUNT  
  
Halvard:  
Total Bird Count: 44  
Last Seen Species: Smew  
  
Henrik:  
Total Bird Count: 45  
Last Seen Species: Northern Harrier 

* * *

FEBRUARY 14  
Location: Kristiansand and Stavanger  
  
The one thing that the two of them _weren’t_ expecting is to find out so much about each other.  
  
In the past they had only really shared information about their interest in birding, as to how they got started, what was their “spark bird” that caused them to commit to the hobby, about their jobs and what birdseed brands they liked to put in the feeders outside their homes. In passing Henrik mentioned a younger sibling, and Halvard echoed he had one too, Halvard knew Henrik designed aircraft and Henrik knew Halvard spent his winter months writing and his summer in the desolate places counting insects and tracking moose, Henrik had a lot of money, Halvard didn’t.  
  
But intimate details about their lives had started spilling out in the field, while they ate their meals, as they lay in the dark in bed before night. Henrik mentioned he was married once, that he was still in love, but he knew it was a love since passed and that it wasn’t going to work. It hurt less than it once did but it still got him down, particularly this time of year when his divorce was finalized, around the same time as Valentine's Day. It was the first time Halvard had seen Henrik look that pitiful, revealing those secrets, and when the waitress came around to take their order Halvard lied and said they were a couple.  
  
“We’ll save a bit of money this way and get free dessert,” Halvard whispers after she leaves. “You just looked like you needing some cheering up, and dessert can fix that easily.”  
  
Halvard tells the story of his parent’s deaths, about how he practically raised his brother, his brother, who barely ever called him, and how he spent most of his adult life alone. He talked about bad, trashy dates and the short term relationships that hadn’t worked out because of his schedule of being far away for most of the spring and summer. They had a lot more in common than they realized: struggles with addiction, indifference of gender when it came to attraction, and suffering from the same exact allergies. They split dessert willingly and laughed over their failures and shortcomings in life, as single old men in their early forties with already greying hair and a plethora of personal problems.  
  
But birds made them forget.  
  
Being back in the field also zapped away any sympathy Halvard had for Henrik once Henrik called out that he had seen both a greater and lesser-spotted woodpecker but by the time Halvard made his way over both had flown away.  
  
South of Kristiansand is the tiny island of Flekkerøy, a wonderful place to bird and the first place where Halvard has the advantage. He leaves Henrik with their spotting scopes pointed out to sea, telling him he’s going to scout and check a few areas where local rarities sometimes pop up, which is a half truth. He _does_ know where the best spots to bird here are, but more importantly he also consistently knows where he can find birds to bridge the gap between them and even out the score.  
  
Flekkerøy, however, doesn’t care what Halvard wants. A spot that is teeming with birds one minute might be empty an hour later, a bird who has been in one spot all week might one day decide to fly three countries away, and your favorite birding spot might be devoid of any avifauna whatsoever. Some things can be predicted, but predictions can only get you so far. Halvard is lucky, he adds both woodpeckers he missed and a few others in the woods and a few others, but he’s not as lucky as he wants to be. He gives up and heads back to where Henrik is hunched over, eye against the lens of his spotting scope, and doing excited hand flaps to contain a excitement that is overwhelming him. Depending on the rhythm and intensity of his hands butterflying in the air, one can guess what it is that he’s looking at. He’s beating them so fast that it has to be something important.  
  
“Got anything good?” Halvard mumbles as he comes up beside him to align his scope as well.  
  
Henrik, in an attempt to not shout, whips his body around to face Halvard and whisper-shrieks “snowy owl,” an action where he’s not keeping track of his limbs thrashing around and thus sends his scope, tripod and all, falling, while accidentally kicking Halvard in the knees.  
  
Do you rescue your thousand dollar bird spotting lens or do you help your friend/rival that you just injured?  
  
If you lunge to grasp the tripod and scope while also trying to catch Halvard, congratulations, you’re a reasonable person trying to do your best in the face of challenge, and your name is Henrik.  
  
If you fall face-first into a patch of melted snow and mud while trying to prevent the spotting scope from falling too, but instead you accidentally punch Henrik in the crotch because of your lack of vision, congratulations, you’re a human disaster, and your name is Halvard.  
  
It takes a while to brush off the pain and for Halvard to wipe off as much mud off his face as he can. While in most circumstances they would’ve had a cross word with each other, the thought that there’s an uncommon owl somewhere in the distance directs them right back on task. The scopes are pointed back on the white lump and Henrik starts getting excited again. “Snowy, snowy snowy!” he starts chanting, practically jumping. “It’s a snowy!”  
  
“That’s a rock, Henrik.”  
  
“It’s not a rock! It’s a snowy owl!”  
  
“It’s a snowy owl-shaped rock. It’s the right color, sure but it’s not turning around. It’s a rock.”  
  
“Yeah, well if I were a bird, I wouldn’t want to face directly into the wind like the idiots we are.”  
  
“It’s a _rock_.”  
  
“Just because you say it, like, fifty times, doesn’t make it a rock,” Henrik pulls the birding journal out of his pocket and records the owl quickly before looking at it again through the scope.  
  
Halvard doesn’t say anything. He starts marching towards where the owl is, making sure to align himself with Henrik’s scope so he can flip him off through the lens as he makes his way over stone and decaying trees hundreds of feet away to confront Henrik’s vagrant owl.  
  
Halvard approaches the owl. He picks up the owl. He hoists the owl under his shoulder and begins the challenging hike back to where Henrik stands.  
  
“Here’s your precious snowy owl,” he snips, unloading the heavy, owl-shaped stone into Henrik’s hands. “Happy Valentine's Day. Be sure to name it.” 

* * *

“You know I was kidding,” Halvard sighs as they stand outside a convenience store on their way through Stavanger, drinking shitty coffee and shoving mouthfuls of a pastry in his mouth to muffle the aftertaste. “We all make bad ID calls, it isn’t that big of a deal.”  
  
“Shhh, Niels Bohr is trying to eat,” replies Henrik, knelt down and feeding the rock—now with eyes and markings of a snowy owl drawn on by a sharpie—sunflower seeds. “He’s a precious gift from my most treasured frenemy and I must keep him well-fed.”  
  
Niels Bohr clatters around in the trunk of their rental car as they go to their next stop. 

* * *

Luck is against them at their next stop. With it being winter and heavily windy there aren’t that many birds flitting around here. Halvard sighs against a tree and scans the brush for flapping, chipping, any sign that something with two wings is alive and kicking out here. There’s nothing. An hour passes, but Halvard, with some mud still clinging to his face and hair, is determined to find something.  
  
Henrik, on the other hand, has amused himself with identifying other things. He calls the names out of the tree species he knows but soon that becomes a bit of a bore, so he uses his scope to zoom in on objects far away in the distance. That too, becomes boring fast, and so he comes up with a new game—calling out random objects as if they’re birds.  
  
“Silver-breasted beer can, between one and two o’clock,” he smirks to himself as he focuses his binoculars on the trash caught in a nearby bush. “Real beauty, in it’s first year of plumage. Halle, are you seeing this?”  
  
“No. I’m looking for _actual birds_.”  
  
Henrik climbs into the bush to claim the can and sings a song about recycling, pocketing the metal and finding another thing to focus in on, and then another. Halvard ignores him until Henrik starts giggling, standing twenty feet away with his binoculars pointed at Halvard’s crotch and focusing in and out on it rapidly.  
  
“Quit that,” he scowls when he finally notices, “I’m leaving.”  
  
“You have no sense of humor!” Henrik calls out after him as Halvard disappears into the big black woods. 

* * *

As dusk approaches he’s hoping he can see an actual owl, _any_ owl. They’re tied now, he only needs one more bird to put himself in the lead, and an owl after Henrik’s rock fiasco would only make victory taste even sweeter. To find one it’s mostly a matter of listening closely for hoots and shrill sounds echoing between the trees. The sounds of near-dusk lapsing into darkness are Halvard’s favorite no matter the time of year. A quavering call vibrates through the air, a call that he knows, the call of the highly territorial and moody tawny owl.  
  
He immediately stops and jots down the bird’s name on his list and silently celebrates while following the sound. While audio recognition is enough to count the bird, a visual would be even better, and with the last fading light he might be able to catch a brief glimpse of the silent hunter, oh what a treat that would be, what a thing he could rub in Henrik’s face.  
  
Closer, closer, closer, he weaves in and out of the brush as the song continues, getting increasingly excited, excitement that is then crushed when he discovers there is no owl, there is only Henrik, who has wandered too, with his phone high in the air playing the bird’s call, trying to get an actual owl to call back.  
  
He turns right around and headbutts a nearby pine in frustration. It could be worse, he tells himself.  
  
At least they’re still tied.  
  
DAILY NET COUNT  
  
Halvard:  
Total Bird Count: ~~54~~ 53  
Last Seen Species: ~~Tawny Owl~~ Gray Heron  
  
Henrik:  
Total Bird Count: ~~54~~ 53  
Last Seen Species: ~~Silver-breasted Beer Can~~ Goldcrest 

* * *

The drive to Haugesund is mostly pleasant, the radio hums quietly as Halvard drives through the night, but after being outside for most of the day the two of them are both cold despite bundled up in sweaters and coats. It’s also tiring, and Henrik finds himself nodding off in the passenger’s seat during slow songs.  
  
“I used to never get this tired,” he says, rubbing his cheeks to hopefully bring back some energy into his body. “I could walk all day and party all night and still be ready to go in the morning.”  
  
“Well, you aren’t twenty anymore,” Halvard puts his turn signal on. “I’m not twenty anymore either. Things change. The candle gets shorter.”  
  
They get the keys to their cheap hotel, Henrik heads out in search of food while Halvard finally has a chance to shower and remove the mud now dried and caked in his bangs. The water is warm and pleasant and he spends a while leaning against the wall and soaking himself while thinking half-coherent thoughts. But he gets an idea, one that makes him stand up straight, and he considers the proposal his brain generated for him in great detail. He weighs his options. By the time he’s decided and cleaned himself Henrik is back, so he shuts off the water, dries himself off, and wraps a towel around his body.  
  
“My turn to shower,” Henrik states as he passes him, dumping the spoils of his quest into Halvard’s arms and tells him he can go ahead and eat without him. And Halvard does, without a second thought, immediately sitting cross-legged on the bed and trying to sort out what is his and what is Henrik’s. It’s easier to sort out than he thought, and he’s shocked that Henrik got his preferences right, but then he wonders to himself if it’s actually the other way around and that he remembers _Henrik’s_ favorite things enough to spot the difference. He eats carefully but quickly to refill his stomach and Halvard is on the tail end of finishing when Henrik returns and sits next to him. He’s farther along dressed than Halvard got—but not by much, a towel and underwear serve basically the same purpose here—and as Halvard finishes he thanks Henrik and makes a comment about how impressed he was that Henrik remembered what he liked.  
  
“I dowt thnnk it’s twhat woeird,” Henrik says with his mouth half-full muffling his words before swallowing, “I mean, you sent me off for food without telling me what you wanted, so you’d have to trust me to know to some extent, right?”  
  
“Oh,” Halvard pauses, then snorts. “No, I suppose I was so focused on getting in the shower I forgot to say anything.”  
  
Henrik joins him for a few half-laughs. “Ah,” is all the usually very talkative man says.  
  
“Is something wrong?”  
  
“The weather, the time of year, I’ve already told you, I just get sad sometimes and my mind started thinking about stuff while I was out. It’s not a big deal, don’t worry about it. I’m trying my best to be upbeat about it.”  
  
“It’s okay to be sad about it, you know. I—” he pauses.  
  
“What?”  
  
Halvard fidgets and looks the other way. “Look. I know we’ve got this rivalry going, and we want to beat each other, and our reputation is to be these very different at-odds people, and that hasn’t changed. We’re very different, and our pain is different, and I’m not going to pretend that I understand what going through divorce is like. I’ve never married. I don’t plan on ever being married. But I do understand loss. I think I understand how you feel. And I wish, when I was younger, that somebody had told me it was okay to express and admit that pain to yourself instead of just enduring it. I guess, what I want to say, is that I’m here for you, even if we’re supposed to be enemies. You’re kind of my friend, too. Maybe.”  
  
“You aren’t quite on the mark with my problem being the expressing pain bit,” Henrik smiles. “But it really means a lot that you care enough to say all of that, and that you don’t perpetually see me as a threat, and that this thing we have is a lot more complicated than just a standard rivalry. Like, a lot of people we both know say that you’re kind of distant and cold and it’s hard to tell whether or not you really care about anything, but I don’t think that’s true. You are distant at times, and easily irritated, and while I thought you were kind of cold when we first met, I don’t think that now. For all the griping and moodiness and frustration that you aren’t in the lead, you’ve also offered me a lot of small kindnesses and warmth when you didn’t have to do so. Thanks for that, Halle. You’re my friend, too.”  
  
Halvard continues to find the wallpaper in the corner fascinating even though his cheeks are red. He doesn’t respond.  
  
“Catbird got your tongue?”  
  
To that, Halvard does respond with a series of meows before launching into an unprompted explanation that there are several birds known as catbirds but not all of them are related, explaining on and on partially because he knows that Henrik might find it interesting and partially because he wants to avoid crossing into feelings territory in that moment. He continues to lecture while Henrik eats, but stops once Henrik is ready to join back in. The conversation moves from birds back to themselves through mentions of the birds they saw today, about Niels Bohr still in the trunk, about the frustrating and funny moments that happened, reinforcement of compliments on their birding skill, and then it lands them back to what Halvard had started.  
  
As time ticks away, they continue to talk about themselves, Henrik slowly coaxes Halvard to reveal the soft parts of himself, they move their hands and brush up against each other, but whether it’s accident or on purpose isn’t really known. Halvard makes Henrik laugh, and he slaps Halvard’s thigh while he does, but when the joke is over Henrik’s hand is still gently resting just above his knee. It’s warm. They look at each other.  
  
“We should sleep in tomorrow,” Halvard whispers under his breath, drawing closer so Henrik can hear him, and then even closer than is necessary. “You look tired.”  
  
“You, too.”  
  
Neither of them draw back, and when Henrik leans a little closer and cocks his head ever so slightly, Halvard knows the signs of an offer when he sees one. He momentarily hesitates, rocks himself a bit closer, and accepts it by kissing Henrik has fiercely as he possibly can.  
  
The clock strikes midnight. 

* * *

FEBRUARY 15  
Location: Utsira  
  
The afterglow sends them both to sleep quickly, but Halvard’s internal alarm clock wakes him before the sun rises and more importantly, before Henrik’s phone goes off. He unlocks the phone (Henrik had told him his passcode for ease days earlier), turns off all the alarms, and places it back on the nightstand where it belongs. Sliding out of Henrik’s grasp is a little harder, but he’s sneaky about it and thankfully Henrik is exhausted enough that he sleeps right through Halvard leaving and replacing his body with a few pillows. He tries to clean himself up as best he can without making too much noise and dresses himself, double checking to make sure he’s packed up all his things, leaves a note, and clicks the door shut with his pulse racing.  
  
He only stops to think about what he’s done when he’s aboard the ferry to the small island of Utsira. He feels guilty a little bit, but there’s nothing he can do now halfway out to sea, and he _did_ leave a note with where he was going. Henrik knew how badly Halvard wanted to win, perhaps it would be understood. He brushes it off by looking for seabirds, of which many are new to the list. He writes them down and takes deep breaths of the ocean air.  
  
Utsira is infamous for being one of the best spots to see birds in Norway with over three hundred species recorded coming to its shores. Halvard had been here before, both for pleasure and for work, and he doesn’t need anyone to show him around.  
  
But he keeps calling out the birds he sees even though nobody is there to see them with him. The soft “H” sound begins on his lips but never finishes, catching his mistake, remembering that he’s alone before he vocalizes. He’s still excited to list new birds and catch sight of them soaring overhead, but there’s an emptiness that he just can’t shake.  
  
He misses Henrik, he has to admit to himself, and the guilt only grows as time passes. 

* * *

It’s the afternoon, he stands by the sea, and he hears his name being called.  
  
It’s not the gentle, affectionate Halle, but by Halvard that Henrik addresses him, trudging over with a multitude of emotions plastered all over his face, face bright red and panting from running from one end of the island to the other, and Halvard braces himself while Henrik has to stand and pant a while to catch his breath. “You!” Henrik finally blurts out, pointing. “You lied!”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Why would you do that?!”  
  
“I wanted to win,” Halvard shrugs. There’s no point in lying.  
  
“Saying to sleep in, the sex, turning off my alarm, leaving, it was all manipulation? A lie?”  
  
“Not… all of it.”  
  
The new emotion of bepuzzlement is added to Henrik’s collage of fluctuating expressions.  
  
Halvard pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.  
  
“Look, it was my plan to leave, to get ahead of you, to suggest going to bed early and sneaking out anyway. Talking about ourselves was not, talking about our feelings was not, and certainly offering up verbal affection and sleeping with you was not something that I intended to happen either.”  
  
“So?”  
  
“So, I’m saying that that the intimacy was absolutely genuine and not something I was using against you. I’ve felt bad about it. I’m sorry. I still want to beat you, but I’m sorry.”  
  
He takes Henrik’s hands and folds his around them. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, for a third time. “On the north side of the island there’s quite a number of birds. You can probably catch up to me if you hurry.” Halvard lets him go.  
  
“... I need to think for a little bit,” Henrik says, “about all of this, and how I feel about it, and everything. I’ll take you up on the offer to go north. I’ll come find you later, and then I think we should talk.”  
  
Halvard nods, tells Henrik he’ll head towards the west, and spends two hours flicking small stones into the sea. 

* * *

“Sixty is my count,” are the words that Henrik greets him with. “What’s yours?”  
  
“Sixty.”  
  
“So we’re even,” Henrik smiles, sitting down next to him on the rock. “Both in birding, and for everything else.”  
  
“But I think it is especially cruel consid—” Halvard can’t finish his sentence as Henrik waves a hand in front of his face.  
  
“I think it’s better just to drop it. Competition can get the better of people, you already admitted your guilt, and besides, I’ve been stealing your lens wipes the entire trip and pretending that I don’t have any to give you when you ask,” he empties his pockets, littering a good dozen packets on the ground with a lazy smile. “So I’m not entirely innocent either.”  
  
“When the hell did you take these?”  
  
“When you went to the bathroom a couple of times I went through your bag quite a bit, when you went to go debunk the snowy owl ID I saw a chance to do it again, and before you got out of the shower last night I filched the last of them from you. I’m sorry too, having dirty optics in a place such as this, given the sea spray and all, must’ve been pretty frustrating.”  
  
Halvard hums in passive agreement, rips open one of the packets, and takes a moment to clean his binoculars in the face of the setting sun in front of them, hovering above the mainland westward, sinking into orange.  
  
“Let me tell you what I’m thinking, Halle. You said your affections were genuine, right?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Then how would you feel if I said I enthusiastically reciprocated them?”  
  
Halvard stops polishing the glass. “Are you asking me out?”  
  
“Kinda, well,” Henriks scratches his head, “I guess in a way, yeah.”  
  
Halvard looks at him in the glow of the sun. “I can’t see my lifestyle changing, it’s one that makes me happy. That means I’ll be away every summer—often during the spring and autumn too—so I’d be away a lot. Sometimes I’m unreachable for weeks at a time, sometimes because I can’t, sometimes because I don’t want to. That’s something that’s ended relationships that I’ve had before. I don’t want to move to Denmark or to the city, I like my little home in the country and I’ve worked hard to earn that place for myself. You understand that, right? That even if I did accept there would be some hard terms.”  
  
“Hey, I didn’t say “oh Halle m’dear, you have to trade your freedom away for my love!” or anything like that. I get that you love your solitude. More of what I’m saying is like… it would be nice to have someone to talk to who understands, it would be nice to have someone to be physically intimate with on a regular basis, and it would be even nicer if this person shared my hobby. Most people wouldn’t ask for a second date if you took them to a garbage dump or a mud pit to look at birds. But if I took you, you’d be just as thrilled as me to be there, and at this point in my life I need someone like that.”  
  
A large bird flies by, they both raise their binoculars instinctively to look at it soar across the sky.  
  
“You would be okay with my terms?”  
  
“I’m a busy dude too sometimes and I have no desire to drop everything and move to the Norwegian countryside, either. All I’m proposing we call each other once and a while to chat about things other than birds, visit each other if we happen to be nearby, and be better rivals. Less of the trickery, more of the support, all of the same competitive spirit. Just this time, we’ll play fair and be on the same team at the end of the day. If it doesn’t ultimately work out, fine, but I’d like to give it a shot. So what do you think?”  
  
“European shag.”  
  
“No!” Henrik starts laughing so hard at Halvard’s matter-of-fact but misplaced statement that he starts tearing up. “I’m not asking what you think the bird is!”  
  
“Oh.” Halvard pauses. He curls himself up after the shag passes them overhead, drawing his legs against his chest and letting the binoculars balanced atop his knees. “I’d be okay with that,” he replies quietly, “but aren’t you afraid?”  
  
“Of what?”  
  
“That we’ll ruin it.”  
  
“I already have a failed marriage behind me, you have your handful of short flings, I think we’re both a little bit afraid of commitment, but for different reasons. That’s why I’m not saying we should be each other’s everything or jump into being something super committal right away. Maybe even if it does work we’ll never get to that point, but I think as long as there’s a chance that we could be happy together, regardless of whether the terms of the relationship are typical or not, it’s worth pursuing. I don’t really care if you want to call it dating or whatever. I like you, Halle. This trip made me realize that I really like you. And you feel the same way, so. Why not try?”  
  
“Okay. I accept, on one condition.”  
  
“Mm?”  
  
“I don’t want anyone knowing. If it fails, I’d rather it fail in private. And I think it might be a bit of a shocker to come back from this and have it become widespread news that the birding rivalry of Henrik and Halle has resulted in them becoming some variation of friends with benefits.”  
  
“As much as it would be fun to create a huge buzz and mess around with people, that’s fine with me.”  
  
“And I’ll still be your rival.”  
  
“Same here sweetie,” Henrik winks at Halvard, who ignores him and starts throwing rocks into the sunset-reflecting water. “I’m not gonna let you win next time.”  
  
Ploosh.  
  
“Next time?”  
  
“I’m going to go somewhere—I’m not sure, maybe America—next winter to see some new birds. I originally planned to go alone and rub it in your face but I’d like for you to come with me, if you want, and if you can.” Henrik stands up and hurls the largest rock he can into the water, barely managing to throw it more than a few feet. "Maybe we can nab number four hundred together.”  
  
“... I’ll have to check my schedule. But it sounds like a date.”  
  
Henrik cheers, whooping and hollering and causing a racket, to which Halvard takes a handful of the once-stolen cleaning packets and throws them at him in a vain attempt to get him to stop. They pick up the scattered objects, gather their gear, and attempt to find their way to the hotel before the sun vanishes from the sky. “Attempt” being very much the correct word because they get terribly lost and have to use a flashlight, with Henrik giggling with every step and Halvard shaking his head and sighing about the whole ordeal, to find their way back where they need to go.  
  
They stay up late, coming up with their final count lists and creep into personal territory soon later, sharing more of their melancholies and victories. They complain about their bones that are starting to creak with age, but Halvard mentions that he actually likes the graying pattern in his hair, it compliments him well he thinks. Henrik shows Halvard an old deep scar on his back and the way the discolored skin winds itself amongst the moles scattered above it. They share a bed, it’s cold outside but warm between them, and this time, Henrik doesn’t set an alarm and Halvard feels no need to play anymore tricks.  
  
They never saw their four hundredth bird. Their ultimate lists are still at the awkward number of three hundred and ninety-nine and they won’t surpass it until they arrive in Florida the next year and gawk at a white ibis in the airport parking lot. They’ve seen the same number of birds during this year’s count and neither take the crown.  
  
Nothing has changed  
  
And yet everything is different.  
  
TOTAL NET COUNT  
  
Halvard and Henrik:  
Total Bird Count: 61  
Last Seen Species: European Shag

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to the [eBird](http://ebird.org/content/ebird/) and the [Cornell Lab of Ornithology](http://www.birds.cornell.edu/Page.aspx?pid=1478) for making my research waaaay easier by having their data available to everyone freely.


End file.
